


sometimes, we love a river because it is a reflection

by stark2ash



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: (but just a little), Avengers Family, Domestic Avengers, NOT Steve/Tony, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Steve Rogers, Slow burn friendship, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Steve's trying to figure out Tony, Tony Stark Has A Heart
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-19
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:00:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27096175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stark2ash/pseuds/stark2ash
Summary: stuff just happens. and happens. and you wake up and it's still happening, even though you wish it wasn't(Steve doesn't know what to make of Tony Stark)
Relationships: Steve Rogers & Avengers Team, Steve Rogers & Tony Stark, Tony Stark & Avengers Team
Comments: 5
Kudos: 14





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> [title/description taken from here](https://ridinkskinned.com/post/168756887749/writing-prompt-s-at-18-everyone-receive-a)

Steve was the last to move in.

It wasn’t his fault, not really. He’d been in town when Tony had offered, and _technically_ had about 3 days before Fury shipped him out on some mission to Ukraine to scout out a shifty supply chain. “One week, tops,” Hill had said. Three weeks and several faulty starts later, his team finally came across accurate info, cleaned up the mess, and cleared out. Steve had immediately returned to his tiny apartment and collapsed on the bed, bone tired. When he woke up several hours later, he noticed a note and a small package sitting on his kitchen counter.

_“Whenever you get back, here’s some new Avengers tech. Not sure if you know how to use it, so I included a map. Room’s free whenever you’re ready. – TS.”_

Pushing the note aside, he opened the package, revealing a smartphone and a map of New York, with his apartment and Stark Tower circled in bright blue ink. Subtle.

Packing up his personal items didn’t take long, but by the time he slung the lone duffel bag and shield onto his motorbike, the sun was setting. Following the map (because Stark was right, he wasn’t sure if he trusted his 21st century skills just yet), he made the short trip to the tower and parked in the garage Stark had indicated. A few steps to the right, and he was in the elevator, moving up and trying to imagine what life living with the Avengers would be like.

When the doors opened, he stepped out into one of the nicest rooms he had ever seen. To his right, a spacious kitchen with real wooden floors and dark countertops was laid out in such a way that Steve would have thought he’d stepped right into a magazine, had there not been dirty dishes in the sink and a smattering of photos on the fridge. Directly in front of him was a large living space, complete with deep couches, a crackling fire, and a television larger than he could have possibly imagine.

As he continued forward, he realized there was a red-headed woman speaking softly in the living area, angled away from him. She was sitting on the couch, and as he stepped closer, he realized Stark was laying on his back, head in her lap. Her hand grazed lazily through his hair as they whispered to each other, the firelight casting a warm glow over them and making Steve feel like he had interrupted an intensely private moment.

He thought about backing away quietly, but a disembodied voice made him jump. “Sir, you asked to be notified when your guest arrived.” Stark and the woman both looked up, noticing him for the first time.

“Oh, hey Cap! I see Fury finally pulled you back from god knows where.” Stark sat up and pushed himself off the couch. He walked around to where Steve was standing. “It’ll be nice to interact in a non-world-ending scenario.” Behind them, the woman’s mouth curled into a half smile.

“What’s…” Steve pointed at the ceiling, hoping he didn’t look as confused as he felt.

“That’s Jarvis! He’s the AI that runs this place and helps out occasionally with the superheroing. You know, specs and probabilities and stuff. Say hello, buddy.”

“Hello, Captain Rogers. Welcome to Stark Tower.” Stark grinned, looking somewhat like a proud parent. “And Sir, I do believe that ‘occasionally’ is a vast underestimation of the work I do for you.”

Stark shrugged, his eyes sparkling fondly, and Steve realized he hadn’t seen the man’s face for most of the short time they’d spent working together. And when he had, they’d been in over their heads and short on time. “That’s true, he actually does most of the work. I’m just here to look pretty and throw money at problems.” This must be the less stressed version of the high-strung Stark he’d met on the helicarrier.

“And I’m here to make sure that we’re throwing money at the _right_ problems.” The woman walked around and shook his hand. “Pepper Potts, Tony’s CEO. It’s nice to meet you, Captain.” She was dressed professionally, and Steve realized she was the woman in all of the tabloid photos of the Stark Industries rebuilding effort, always portrayed as a capable businesswoman and rumored girlfriend of the eccentric billionaire.

He returned her smile. “Please, ma’am, call me Steve.”

She nodded, the half-smile still present, and turned to Stark. “I have to get going, we’ve got that meeting with the San Francisco branch in the morning and I’m still finalizing some of the paperwork.” She kissed him on the cheek, and Stark gave her what seemed to be a very fond pat on the shoulder before she started walking towards the elevator. “Tony, 9 a.m. sharp or I’m switching all your coffee to decaf,” she called over her shoulder.

“You complete me,” he yelled back, just as the elevator doors were closing. He laughed to himself for a second, and then his face fell. “JARVIS, set an alarm for 8. I _cannot_ miss that meeting.” He turned to Steve, looked at his single duffel bag, and then back up to his face. “So. Grand tour now, or later?”

Steve looked past him, out the glass that made up the entire outer wall. The sky was black now, but the lights of the city twinkled as far as he could see. “Rain check? It’s been a long day.” Stark nodded, and gestured toward the elevator.

“JARVIS, Cap’s floor, please.” Stark leaned on one of the handrails. “Everyone else has moved in, but Thor’s technically off-world right now and Natasha is somewhere in Wisconsin, doing god knows what.” His face was animated, his voice alight even as Steve noticed how tired he looked in the harsher elevator light. “She thinks I don’t know, but I do. Super-secret spies can’t hide everything. Speaking of which, how was Ukraine?”

“It was fine. Cold, windy, too long of a trip to be enjoyable. My team was okay, but I’ve worked with better.” Few things had felt as good as storming a Hydra base with Bucky and the rest of the Howling Commandos at his side. The only time that even came close was the Battle of New York. The elevator doors opened, bringing Steve out of his thoughts, and they stepped into an absurdly sized living space. Steve turned to Stark. “This can’t possibly all be mine.”

Stark grinned, a fierce expression in contrast to his soft smile from before. “It is. This is your own living space to relax in, complete with a small kitchen in that corner. Of course, most of us hang out in the common area where you came in, but I’m a man who understands the value of privacy.” He pointed to the left. “Through that door, you’ll find your bedroom, with a few extra things I figured you’d be needing. You can furnish however you’d like, just talk to JARVIS and he’ll place an order. In fact, he’ll answer pretty much any questions you ask, if no one else is available.” He clapped his hands together, looking pleased. “So, everything good?”

Steve was still trying to process “your own living space”. The space was easily four times the size of the apartment he’d just left, eight times the size of the room he’d shared with Bucky as a teenager. “This is too much. You didn’t have to go to all this trouble.”

“It’s fine, I had to do a bunch of remodeling after, you know…” Stark pointed upwards and made a circle, his hand trembling ever so slightly. He shoved it into his pocket. “Complete tower makeover.” He shrugged. “Anyway, if you need anything, I’m one floor up, and the three floors down are Bruce and the wonder twins, although I would recommend asking JARVIS for most things. He’s almost all-knowledgeable and available every hour of the day.”

“I’ll do that, thank you.”

Stark nodded. “If you’re fine here, I’m going to go.” He winced. “Pepper’s not the only one with work to finish before tomorrow.” He turned to leave, and Steve suddenly remembered something he wanted to say.

He reached out a hand and caught his shoulder before he walked away. Stark whirled around, knocking his hand off with the sudden movement. “Stark, I…” he let his hand drop. “I wanted to apologize. For my comments before the battle.” He looked down. “They were rude and uncalled for, and I hope you can forgive me.”

He looked back up at Stark’s face, gauging his reaction. At first, there was nothing. Then the corners of his mouth turned upward in the same half-smile Ms. Potts had worn earlier. “All is forgiven, Cap. I said some pretty harsh things too, and I think I speak for the whole team when I say we should make this a fresh start.”

Steve breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you, Mr. Stark.”

Stark’s eyes hardened almost imperceptibly, then relaxed. “Call me Tony.”


	2. Chapter 2

The team dynamic had changed while he was away, Steve realized. It was late afternoon, and the sunset streaming in through the windows behind him cast a soft glow on the report he was reading. Barton was lying face down on the couch, presumably asleep, as he’d flopped down on the soft cushions about an hour prior. Muffled sounds came from the kitchen, where Bruce was cooking something that smelled extraordinarily spicy. Before, Steve had been worried about Barton and the security risk he posed with the whole mind control thing, but knowing he had lived in the tower for a month and nothing had happened put him at ease. The man also apparently felt comfortable enough to take a nap in the most exposed part of the common area, so he had to at least trust the people around him. Steve was surprised that included him.

Banner was different; as one of the three people not bound to SHIELD in some way, Steve had expected him to leave after the battle. He had seemed extremely reluctant to join the team, and falling off a plane to crash land in a warehouse had to make anyone reevaluate their commitments. Steve wouldn’t have blamed anyone for wanting to go back to a simpler life. But here he was, cooking rice and peppers and something else and putting four plates out on the counter.

Over the back of the couch, Steve could see the elevator doors open. Stark’s head was visible for a second, and then he disappeared into the kitchen, presumably to talk to Banner. Steve flipped a page of the report over, focusing on the map that took up most of the space.

“Hey Barton.” There was a thump, followed by someone wheezing. Steve looked over the edge of his report.

“Oh my god, Tony, you gotta give a guy warning before doing that,” came Barton’s winded groan. Stark had apparently rolled over the back of the couch and landed face-down on top of him. From the looks of it, he’d come straight from work, suit and all. Tony mumbled something into Barton’s upper back. “I don’t care that you had six hours of board meetings today, I still need a spine if I’m gonna save your ass the next time you hang up on Fury.” Neither of them made any move to get up, and after thirty seconds of staring at them, Steve went back to his reading. The Ukraine mission had been a technical success, but the report he was staring at showed early reports of three bunkers that received supplies from the cartel they busted. Fury sending over the report so soon meant that Steve was expected to lead at least one mission, and likely within the next week. He groaned, thinking about packing up and spending another month freezing somewhere east of France, and Barton peeled an eye open. “You good?”

“I’m fine,” he said, slapping the stack of papers onto the coffee table. “Fury’s probably going to send me back out soon, there’s still a lot out there.”

Stark pushed himself off of Barton’s back, smushing the man’s face into the couch cushions as he did. “Let me see those, I can probably pull some strings.” He reached for the papers, but Steve put his hand over them, holding them on the table.

“You don’t have the security clearance.”

Stark’s eyes met his defiantly, then crinkled around the corners as he laughed. “I’m in all the SHIELD systems, Cap. Fury knows I’ll get my hands on it either way, so it’s easier when they’re already in front of me.” Steve looked at Barton, who rolled his eyes and nodded, so he gestured at Stark to take the papers. The man shuffled through them, taking an extra second on the map that caught Steve’s attention earlier. “Hey Clint, you remember that hacker we traced to Poland a few weeks back? Couldn’t figure out what they were trying to get at?”

Barton rolled into a sitting position, looking far more interested and more awake than Steve had seen him yet. “You think they’re connected?”

Stark tapped one of the bunkers on the map, close to the border between Ukraine and Poland. “They bailed before we got anything substantial, but we got a 100-mile range on their location. This one’s within that.” He handed the papers back to Steve. “I’d say about an 87% chance there’s something going on there.”

“Do you have any ideas what they were looking for?” Steve asked. A hacker in SHIELD’s databases… he wasn’t completely familiar with how that worked, technologically speaking, but he understood enough about intercepting plans and information that he knew it could be deadly.

“They were going toward the Avengers files, but didn’t make it in,” Stark said. “Which could mean anything. They could be trying to find out who’s on the team, who our backup players are, our weaknesses, pretty much anything. That was the first thing I did when I got the call.” Steve thought back to the stack of files he’d thrown in his bag just before leaving. Each Avenger had a profile, list of relevant information, but he hadn’t had time to read them yet. He had no clue if Fury had given him just the main bits or the full thing, but he made a note to look over them later in the day.

“Hey Bruce, come out here for a sec,” Clint shouted over his shoulder.

Banner emerged from the kitchen, wiping his hands on a dishtowel. Steve hadn’t seen much of him yet, just glimpses here and there around the tower. They’d barely spoken during the battle, other than the rather tense interaction right before Barton sabotaged the helicarrier. Now, with his curly hair sticking to his forehead and a shirt with several stains on it, he seemed like much less of a threat. “What are you looking at?” he asked, tossing the dishtowel over his shoulder.

Stark pointed at the files in Steve’s hands. “Probable connection to the hacker. You have any new theories on what they were after?”

Banner pushed his hair back in thought. “Not since we last went over it.” Steve handed the map to him, and he traced the route Steve’s team had taken down. “You’re the computer guy, Tony, I’m just the backup.”

“Come on, big guy, you’re not just the backup. You’re here for all the biological stuff, like last week when you figured out how there were mutant wolves roaming Central Park.” Stark threw his arm over Banner’s shoulders. “Plus, it’s not like Clint can even read, so you’re a few steps in front of him.”

Steve looked at Barton, who pointed an accusing finger at Stark. “Hey, I can read.” He looked over, eyebrows narrowing. “Steve, I can read, he’s lying.”

“I figured you could,” Steve said. “Given that it’s probably a pretty crucial skill in your field.” The energy in the room bordered on playful, something that he hadn’t expected from the serious men that he’d fought with before.

“Well, the food’s ready,” Banner said, motioning toward the kitchen. “Hopefully everyone can tolerate a little heat.” Steve dropped the papers back to the coffee table, and moved with the rest of them, taking a plate from the counter. “Clint, second thoughts?”

Barton was looking at the pot of rice rather apprehensively. “I don’t think my intestines reacted well the last time you made this.” He poked it with a spoon. “Reminded me of that mission someone tried to poison me with that rat stuff. Might stay away today.”

“Steve.”

Steve turned to look at Stark, who was staring at the rice. “What?”

“What was on the supply train you ambushed? What were they carrying?” Stark’s eyes moved from the rice to his own, and Steve put down his plate and went to get the report.

His eyes scrolled down the pages until he found the list. “Mostly standard weapons, phosphorus trichloride, sulfur, some others.” He made it back to the kitchen and held the paper out to Stark, who stared at it. Banner pushed through them and took the paper from Steve’s outstretched hand, looking at what had been neatly typed. Steve knew he was missing something.

“Tony,” Banner breathed out. “They have diisopropylaminoethanol.”

Stark’s eyes hardened. “I’m calling Fury. There’s no way we’re the first ones to notice this, and if we are, he needs to fire half his staff.” He put his still-empty plate down on the counter and walked toward the elevator. “I’ll be in the lab, might be a while. Don’t wait up.” He waved without turning around, and as he stepped into the elevator, Steve thought he saw his hand come up to cover his face.

Both he and Barton looked at Bruce for an explanation, the food more or less forgotten. Banner pointed at the paper, pinpointing the long word that Stark had reacted to. “It’s an ingredient for a lethal nerve agent.” He glanced at Barton. “Remember the North Korean assassination?” Barton grimaced.

“Sorry, what happened?” Steve felt so lost. There was no reasonable way they expected him to be completely caught up to recent history, but shame still washed over him. Bad enough that he didn’t know how to use a modern phone past the calling action, but missing major world events seemed like a major faux pas.

“JARVIS, can you pull up the history of VX?” Banner asked. There was no reply, but the large television in front of the couches lit up, and they sat down. “VX is a toxic nerve agent that basically shuts down the signals between different parts of the body. It’s incredibly toxic in small doses and once it’s dispersed, it’ll stay in the environment for a long time.” The chemical structures displayed on the screen went over Steve’s head, but one thing caught his attention.

“It says Stark Industries helped develop it?” He blinked, but Howard Stark’s name was still listed as a developer, among a few other scientists whose names he didn’t recognize.

Banner nodded. “Preliminary research came out of Germany during World War Two, but Stark’s discovery didn’t come about until years later, during the 50’s.” He shook his head. “It’s been used in a few cases, almost always just a few people. There was one attack in the 80’s that killed a few thousand, but no one ever proved that it was used. It was banned in the 90’s, and most of the stockpiles have been destroyed.”

“But now someone’s making more,” Barton said. “That’s not good.”

“Maybe they weren’t going for Avengers files,” Steve said suddenly, several lines connecting in his head. “Those guys knew my team was coming, that’s why it took us so long. Maybe they were trying to figure out if we knew what they were transporting.”

“They did.” Tony Stark stepped off the elevator. “Fastest phone call I’ve ever had with Fury, that’s for sure. He wants us to check it out.” He leaned over the back of the couch, sighing. “I’ll have to reschedule so many meetings, Pepper’s gonna kill me.”

“Biological warfare’s one hell of an excuse, though,” Clint said.

Stark grimaced. “Kind of adds fuel to the whole ‘stop endangering yourself’ argument she’s built up.” He shrugged. “But this is the kind of thing that we’re best suited for. Bruce?” He held out a hand, and Banner pulled himself up from the couch. “How would you like to spend the next four hours creating a new type of gas mask?”

“I wish Natasha never tracked me down,” he groaned, but clapped a hand on Stark’s shoulder good-naturedly. “Maybe we can whip up an antidote while we’re at it.” They disappeared through a hallway to the left, one Steve hadn’t explored yet.

“Well, Cap,” Barton stretched out on the couch, mirroring his position from earlier. “Guess you don’t have to go alone after all.” He yawned and rested his head on a pillow, calmer than Steve could understand. Biological weapons weren’t an entirely new concept, but all his fighting had been physical. Fighting against an enemy agent wouldn’t work if the enemy was a paralyzing gas created by one of the smartest men he’d known.

He shook his head, scattering the thoughts like the snowflakes beginning to stick to the windows. There were too many pathways towards blame, too many ways to twist a good friendship into a blackened light after he had spent decades taking a prolonged nap. A shiver ran through his body, despite the warm air in the tower. Steve picked up the papers again, mismatched and out of order from being passed around. Clint was asleep again, and he envied his ability to relax. He, Stark, and Banner were clearly comfortable around each other and him, but Steve couldn’t shake the feeling that everything was wrong. A few months ago, he had been trying to physically dismantle Hydra, and now, a biological superweapon seemed like just another day for the people around him.

Snow was dusting the tops of the buildings below them, and the sun had set sometime during the conversation, casting the city in a light blue-black shadow. The flakes on the windows began to melt, tracing lines down the windows, and Steve set off in search of a warm blanket.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you'd like to see more of! I have a rough plot that I'm planning on following, but if you really like (or hate) something, I'll take note :)
> 
> 11/17: I'm working on the next chapter, it's just almost finals week at college :(


	3. Chapter 3

“Sir, I must ask you to rest before your flight tomorrow morning.”

Tony’s eyes refocused, and he found himself staring at the same page of crusty old notes that he pulled out of storage hours ago. Similar pages were strewn on the floor around him, covered in chemical formulas and detailed descriptions of synthesis. His music wasn’t playing, and he couldn’t remember when it shut off.

Bruce turned in hours ago, waving goodnight to Tony as he gathered his various notebooks into a pile. After that, he’d kind of lost track of time, pouring through various formulas of Howard’s and trying to find anything resembling a cure.

“Sir.”

“Fine, I’ll call it, J.” Tony waved his hand, and the screens the air disappeared, leaving the space lit only by the lights overhead. As he walked towards the elevator, those too shut off. The Iron Man suits in the back were the only things still illuminated by the display lighting, and he watched the way they stood silently as the elevator doors closed in front of him.

Five hours later, he was sitting in the back of the Quinjet as Clint piloted them over the Atlantic Ocean. The gas masks he and Banner had created the night before were rattling quietly on their hooks, the sound slightly muffled by the attached hood for each Avenger. They could never be too careful, he’d reasoned, but breathing it in would be the worst-case scenario. Bruce was sitting this one out, but he was still with them as backup and a medic just in case something happened. Can’t be too careful, Tony thought, and watched as Nat and Clint laughed about something in the pilot seats.

Steve was quiet, looking out the window, and Tony couldn’t help but think of the man’s last flight over this body of water. Sighing, he stood up and walked over. He tried to make noise to give Steve some warning, but when he placed a hand on his shoulder, it was met with a full-body flinch. “I know this is our first real mission together, Steve, but trust me. We’re prepared.”

Steve’s eyes tore themselves away from the window and looked at him. “I know.” His words sounded cold at first, but Tony could sense some kind of tension running beneath them that didn’t seem to be directed at him.

“Come sit.” He gestured to the seats on the side of the jet, and Steve thankfully followed him. “We got through aliens, we can get through some silly little mission with another potentially catastrophic weapon.” Steve looked at him in a strange way, and he felt a jolt as he tried to remember if he knew the way he still couldn’t look at the night sky without issues.

“I’d like to limit my experience with world-ending events, if it’s all the same to you,” Steve said, and cracked the slightest bit of a grin. There wasn’t a hint of concern behind his eyes, and Tony’s relief mixed with a genuine laugh at the quip.

“Hey guys,” he shouted towards the front. “Cap’s got jokes!”

He could practically feel Natasha roll her eyes, but Clint threw up a peace sign without turning around. “Welcome to the team, Steve. When we get back, you can help me with my prank on Tony after he glitter bombed me during target practice last week.”

It was hard for that to scare Tony with the lightened atmosphere that had expanded through their group. (Although to be sure, it did scare him a little. Clint had been waiting too long for revenge.)

-

Tony didn’t know what he was expecting to find when they landed, but it definitely wasn’t an empty fortress with no signs of life. He asked JARVIS to triple scan the building, but found nothing. He started a new scan for the hacker’s coordinates from the other week, trying to triangulate a new location now that they were closer.

“Spread out and see if you can find any intel.” Steve’s voice was quieter than usual, but made it through the comms just fine. “Something’s not right here.” With a nod, Tony saw Clint and Natasha scale the outer walls of the building, leaving the main entrance for him and Steve. The door was easy enough to open, with no obvious locks, which didn’t calm his nerves in the slightest. They walked along the inner corridor, stopping when they came to a dead end. “You right and I’ll take left?” Tony gave him a thumbs up, still feeling uneasy at how calm everything had been so far.

His hallway was relatively clear, just a few doorways leading to rooms with desks and chairs, not a piece of technology or paperwork in sight. It looked completely deserted, apart from the fact that there wasn’t a speck of dust in the sight. “Recently deserted,” he said into the comms. “Hawkeye, Widow, anything on your end?”

“Nothing out here,” Clint said. “We found a signal dampener that our hacker must have used, but it wasn’t running. They cleared out pretty well.” Tony could hear them shuffling around the grounds through the link.

“Cap, anything that way?”

“Nothing yet. Keep looking.”

He blasted through the last door on the hallway and was greeted with a flutter of papers. “Jackpot.” He scanned a few of them, reading through the notes that were in some foreign language (German? Something he wasn’t fluent in). The armor wasn’t the most delicate of machines, but he was still able to spread out the stack of papers in front, and spot one that held a suspicious number of hexagons and formulas. “Guys, I’ve got something.” Tony started to tell Jarvis to coordinate a pickup with SHIELD, but a notification in the corner of his view lit up.

“Scan complete, sir. The hacker’s location has been triangulated to a location approximately two hundred feet to your left.” JARVIS pulled up a map of the base, and pinpointed the exact location and a path to it with a glowing line. It was on Steve’s side.

Tony’s heart leapt up his throat. “Cap, come in. Did you see anything?” He flew back down the hallway, waiting for a response.

Nothing.

“Cap, come in.” Why was this hallway so long? A burst of static came through comms, followed by Nat yelling something about visitors. Oh, he thought, this was more aligned with his original expectations. He hit the divide where they had split up and pulled a hard turn toward Steve’s location. This hallway was shorter, and as he passed through the doorway of the last room, he heard the static cut off. No comms.

That problem was quickly overshadowed by the sight of Steve standing in the far corner, surrounded by five men in varying stages of unconsciousness. They were all wearing gas masks, and Steve’s was still firmly secured around his face. JARVIS took that moment to tell him sensors detected the nerve gas in the air.

His suit was still airtight, so he didn’t panic, but reached toward Steve and pulled him out of the circle of bodies. “Steve, what happened? Are you all right?” The other man didn’t answer right away, so he focused on leading him out of the room and away from wherever the gas is coming from. JARVIS took a sample of the gas with a vial in a secure suit compartment. “Steve?” When they finally got far enough away, Tony turned Steve around to face him. His face looked fine, if a little shocked, but the not talking was terrifying. It’s wasn’t like Steve was the most outspoken person, but he never failed to respond when he was addressed. “Steve.” Still nothing. “JARVIS, scan.”

It was few scary seconds before the AI responded. “Captain Rogers seems to have a large tear in his uniform on the back of his left leg.”

Tony nearly sent Steve flying as he turned his body around to look. Sure enough, there was a large flap of the reinforced fabric and his undersuit from his knee to his ankle that was loose, exposing skin. Shit.

“Steve, we need to get you out of here.” Steve mumbled something in response, not loud enough for him to make it out, but he pulled him to the front of the armor and flew back toward the entrance.

Steve was a bit taller than him normally, but the armor matched him, and his face was turned towards Tony’s head. “There’s not enough time.”

“What are you talking about, Steve, I’ll get you to Bruce, it’ll be fine.” He was still going as fast as possible through the narrow hallways as he calculated the seconds it would take to get outside and away from whatever got to Steve.

“I gotta put her in the water.” Tony didn’t even have time to process that before they burst through the main doors and into the cold winter air, and Steve’s entire body stiffened as if he was expecting a blow. His comms fizzled back on, and he yelled for Bruce. Out of the corner of his visuals, he could see Clint and Nat fighting a few agents along the wall of the fortress. They looked like they were doing fine for the moment. 

“Bruce, come in.” They were only a little ways away from the Quinjet, maybe about 30 seconds of fast flying.

“What’s wrong?”

“Steve got gassed, just his leg, but something’s up. He’s out of it.”

“Shit. Everything’s ready here, I’ll take care of him.”

Tony dropped Steve off onto the stretcher Bruce provided and launched himself off of the mouth of the Quinjet. He could still see Clint and Natasha fighting off an increasingly large number of enemy agents. After another quick flight, he dropped to the ground between them. “DOWN!” Nat and Clint got the message and hit the floor, and he spun in a circle, repulsors glowing, and took down almost half of their attackers. From there, it was a piece of cake. Tony took shots at the front lines and Nat covered anyone who got through. Clint switched between close hand-to-hand combat and firing long-range arrows, taking out a few attackers on motorbikes. They took them down pretty quickly, but Tony was exhausted.

“So,” Clint said as the last man dropped to the ground. “Back to the jet?”

Tony nodded, then cursed. “There were some papers that I wanted to scan through before I got to Cap. I’m going to go back and have JARVIS upload them to the server.” He looked at the unconscious bodies around them. “Someone call this in to SHIELD so they can pick these guys up, I’ll meet you back at the jet in a few.” Clint and Nat head back toward Bruce and Steve, which, shit, he didn’t know how Steve was doing. First mission they’d actually prepared for and they already had one down.

He turned back toward the building, ready to be done as quickly as possible. The room was just as he left it before, with papers on the floor and a few boxes in the back. He shuffled through them as quickly as possible, pausing only momentarily to let JARVIS upload the text into the server. He would go through the translations later. The boxes weren’t that heavy, especially for the suit, so he picked them up and moved back toward the entrance. “J, remind the SHIELD guys to get rid of those papers when they come through.” The AI responded affirmatively. “Okay, then let’s get going.” The sooner he was back at the jet, the sooner they could make sure Steve was okay and figure out what all of this meant.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a rough one, folks. I have this plot mapped out (to about 8 chapters total) but I haven't been feeling the spark lately. I'm also in my final college semester, so that's not helping my creativity or my free time. I will update this eventually. It just might be a while.


End file.
